Social media are characterized by the principal of participatory culture. They are media content providers and services that allow for horizontal, or peer to peer, communication, production and distribution of content. In some cases, the platform itself is open to lateral forms of participation. That is, users have input in the structure and affordances, not just the content, of the social media. Cellphone texting to Twitter, YouTube to Seesmic, Facebook to Second Life, Blogging to Newsvine and other social journalism sites…these are all social media that emphasize the relationality among users, rather than a “top-down” one-way distribution channel. The question is whether or not media has always been “social”? Indeed, greater emphasis on user participation, or active consumerism, has emerged in recent years. However, it may be possible to say that consumers have always been active; despite more limited entry points and freedoms, consumers have always “decoded” (to use Stuart Hall’s name for it) media content and reproduced it socially, at will.
Filed under: entries | Tagged: social media participatory culture active consumer deco
It strikes me that “interaction” media might be a better term. All media (of course media is the preemptive ambiguity) is social. The difference between medias would appear to be a (d)evolution of epistemology re: distribution rather than an inherent change from non-social to social or vice versa.
So while all media is social, the material (maybe ideological) limitations of print/tv/radio/film don’t allow for much more than passive reception. Whereas the mediums we are utilizing require action (ex: an encyclopedia is always an encyclopedia after being published. A product until it’s burned etc… Wikipedia would be nothing but a catchy name were it untouched after publishing). This is oversimplified and not recognizing modes of production but… Another reason interaction might be nice is that it does not come with as much historical baggage (vague/specific) as social.
great comment — I agree that it is more helpful to focus on changes in distribution (as a mode of sociality, I would say), rather than sociality per se. One thing I would add, though, is that there have long been many examples of “active reception”, liike fan fiction, that do not treat cultural products as “published” or closed systems. Moreover, in addition to “hacking” and remixing, consumers/fans have increasingly taken hold of their redistribution.
I don’t have a webcam set up yet, so I’m just going to respond here if that’s alright (or are we not required to respond on seismic?).
I think that media has always been social, in that it’s a platform for interpersonal communication, which seems inherently social to me. In looking at cultural production and consumption practices, Jenkins suggests an approach that falls somewhere in between political economy and cultural studies – media consolidation and commodified culture on the one hand, and participatory culture on the other. From a cultural studies standpoint, texts are produced, consumed, and then re-produced in other forms, whether it’s other texts or simply everyday practices. Maybe the simplest example of this is media as conversation starter, as in discussing the latest episode of (insert popular tv show here) the next day with co-workers at lunch. In this way, a media representation sets the stage for social relations without actually determining how the text will be received, (re)interpreted, and reproduced in conversation the next day at the water cooler (each co-worker has their own prism of experience, background, knowledge, etc. from which to draw and create meaning – which will likely influence the conversation much more than the text/intended meaning itself).
Whether the structure of communication is a one-to-many message with a screen in between or a peer-to-peer network with immediate feedback loops, has little uniform bearing on those at the receiving end – mainly because they do not just passively receive, but rather (re)interpret, (re)enact, respond, and use the information/story as it suits them – as in the Star Wars fan fiction culture that Jenkins talks about, and the YouTube remix culture that Lawrence Lessig has repeatedly defended. Both cultural commentators take seriously these so-called “amateur” forms of cultural production, as the platforms of cultural inquiry and critique that they are. A great example follows, for anyone who abhors the reality tv show “My Sweet Sixteen”.
My Super Sweet Funeral on FunnyOrDie.com